to a block of iron. But what brought a new chill to my heart, and damped my forehead with the sweat of fear, was the cimeter of steel which lay close to my touch. For what object was it placed there? With what purpose? Then I remembered the Seven Men with the Seven Hands, and cursed the place and him who had brought me there.
It was my thought at that moment that the men who had brought me to this cell would return anon and do their work upon me, but I lay long and was alone. Nor did I hear any sound or movement through the great mass of stone—not so much as a hum from the city or the fall of a foot. The silence bred a strange terror in me. I seemed in one moment to learn the whole purpose of the man who had been my host. I recalled the seven warnings he had given me, the words upon the scrolls, the repeated urging to curb the will and to fly. Here, then, was a philosopher and a devourer of men. He had offered me pleasure, he had offered me pain; I had chosen both when it lay upon me to take but the first; and now I was about to reap,. What said the Seven Men with the Seven Hands?
"Rise and go, or be for all time as we are."
For all time maimed and a servant in that prison! The thought tortured me. I swore that I would fight for my limb as none had fought there before. And I took the cimeter, which lay at my right hand. It was a weapon superb to see, shaped as the short swords of Japan, sharper than any razor of the
